 You know, there are so many different things that we could spend time thinking about, talking about during Bible classes like this on a Sunday morning, but under the circumstances and given the times that we are in and the responsibility that we have, very good to spend some time talking about this issue or a subject of the theology of public life. And I pray that's gonna serve us well in the years to come. I think as we get to the point of making some application for our church in particular and drawing some implications from this, it'll make even more sense to you and that time is drawing near where we'll do that. So we've entered into a part of this study where we're considering the historical theology associated with a theology of public life and we've been looking at how a theology of public life, that thinking has been cultivated over centuries of the church. We began in the early church where the early church very clearly saw a distinction between the church and the state and we're working out in terms of really in the context of severe persecution, working out the relationship between the church and the state, working out the relationship between the individual Christian and civil authority. We spent some time obviously talking about that through Romans 13 and what Paul means there in Romans 13, what the Lord intends for us to understand from Romans 13, not what much of modern day evangelicalism has accepted with respect to Romans 13. We wanted to get at the biblical truth with respect to that text and we see texts like that influencing the thought of the early church theologians. We moved on to Constantine and Augustine and in particular Augustine's thinking with respect to the city of God and the city of man and then we looked last week very broad overview of the medieval period and the tug of war between church and state authority, jurisdiction during the medieval period and so this morning we come to the Reformation and to talk about the reformers and again another step forward in the development of this thought and it's going to take real shape really with the founding of the colonies, the American colonies after the Reformation and we'll see that more next week. Okay, Luther at the time of the Reformation, Reformation really sparked, there were many events, many causes, seeds that you could point to that led to the Reformation but sort of chief among those or foremost among those and our thinking, our understanding was the life and theology of Martin Luther, and Luther, the Lord saved Martin Luther and Luther came to an understanding of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, those words alone being very important and so Luther came to understand the true biblical gospel and there was during the period of Reformation a recovery of the true gospel that had essentially been lost amidst the predominant church at the time, a Roman Catholicism had been lost for centuries and it wasn't that it was gone completely, there were genuine believers at that time, genuine, real biblical churches teaching a biblical gospel but it was so overwhelmed, covered up by this incipient Roman Catholicism that the gospel was for all intensive purposes among the masses of people was lost and so Martin Luther in struggling with justification by faith alone and Christ alone came to an understanding of God's law, his understanding of God's law and his own circumstances really led Luther to think about and develop a theology of public life that Luther's written about and I wanna give you an article that you can find online and read for yourself it's really helpful and led us to understand this subject a little more clearly as well so let's begin with the life of Luther and let's look at Romans chapter one quickly Romans chapter one beginning in verse 16 and just briefly an overview of Luther's conversion justification or right standing with God our declaration of innocence as it were the declaration that God makes of us that we are just is based upon the imputed or gifted given righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and that through faith alone in Christ alone when you turn from your sin and repentance and put faith in Jesus Christ then we're justified on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ our sin is imputed of Lord Jesus Christ he bore our sin at the cross his righteousness imputed to us as a free gift of God's grace and it's by virtue of his righteousness that we are declared righteous ourselves or declared justice how we're saved and we're not saved because God just sort of swept our sin under a rug or turns a blind eye to our sin our sin has to be dealt with every sin going to be paid for it's either gonna be paid by you in eternity in hell or it's paid by Jesus Christ at the cross and if Jesus Christ paid for your sin at the cross then his righteousness is yours through faith and it's on the basis of his righteousness that we're justified the moment that you put saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you have heaven right the moment that you believe that's a glorious thought to me the moment that you believe you put faith in Jesus Christ you have all of the riches that are in him all of the blessings that are afforded you by his spirit in him you have heaven it was that conviction that dawned upon Martin Luther as it were in his study of Romans chapter one in particular verses 16 and 17 and what led Martin Luther to a biblical understanding of the gospel look at Romans chapter one verse 16 Paul says for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek for in it in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just or the righteous shall live by their faith so here's Luther's own words on the text on the subject okay Luther's own words on this passage Luther said I greatly long to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression the justice of God or the righteousness of God because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unjust you see Luther's point Luther saw God's righteousness God being righteous as a cause for God to be angry with the wicked and to deal with them in righteousness by punishing their unrighteousness right it's the way that Luther saw the passage he says my situation was that although an impeccable blameless monk I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience and had no confidence that my merit would assuage him in the system of Roman Catholicism most Roman Catholics may they probably would not understand many of them may understand that it's not that they're saved they wouldn't say necessarily that they're saved by grace plus works they believe that baptism would wash away as it were original sin do away with original sin and many Roman Catholics would even assert that they're saved that we're saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ but what happens in the Roman Catholic system is that as soon as you are justified so to speak any mortal or venial sin and you lose your just standing with God because of your sin and that just standing with God that justification has to be restored and the way that it is restored is through system of penance system of works and that's where the works righteousness comes into Roman Catholicism it's this never-ending series of re-justifying yourself as it were through works of penance in order to maintain right standing with God and Martin Luther saw himself as guilty and continuously guilty he would go into confession sometimes as many as six hours a day confessing his sins to a priest and walk out and realize that he'd forgotten one or two or walk out in sin again and it was this constant hamster wheel as it were that Luther came to the conviction came to the conclusion it was simply nothing that he could do that would assuage God's wrath toward him therefore Luther says I did not love a just and angry God but rather hated and murmured against him yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the righteousness of God and the statement that the just shall live by his faith that word righteous and that word just often synonymous then I grasped that the justice or the righteousness of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through the open gates into paradise the whole of scripture took on a new meaning that we needed in order to be righteous in God's sight that Luther began to see now as a gift of the gospel as a gift of God's grace and saw the righteousness of God that was revealed in the gospel as that free gift not the justice of God in his wrath against sinners and it was through that that Luther came to an understanding of the gospel that by faith alone we believe upon and trust ourselves to Jesus Christ and we are forgiven of our sin declared righteous in his sight it's a righteousness that is given to us freely by God's grace in Christ immediately and fully when we place our faith and our trust in him in a moment Luther had the peace with God that he longed for Luther was genuinely converted later the motto of the Reformation under Luther's lead would become post-Tenebrous lux or lux after darkness light and after this great period of darkness that predominated during the medieval period the light of the gospel shines during the Reformation salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone no less a recovery of the biblical gospel from the perversion of works righteousness that we see under Roman Catholicism that led to a difficulty for Luther an initial difficulty reconciling the law to the gospel and the relationship of law to gospel look at Romans chapter three and look at verse 19 flip the page there to the right Romans 3 19 initially Luther saw these as two entirely distinct things law and gospel and where there was gospel it would cast out all law where there was law there was no room for the gospel and so saw these two things as completely distinct and struggled just a bit for a period of time with the relationship of law to gospel so in Romans chapter three verse 19 now we know that whatever the law says the law says it to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God no work of the law could bring any merit with God whatsoever the law could only expose our great guilt and this is true of every person every person the law exposes our guilt we are in bondage to sin fallen man is totally depraved if you understand what those words mean such that we are shut up we have absolutely no case before God we have to merely put our hand over our mouth we can't say anything natural tendency of fallen man is to make a case to justify himself and plead with God on our own merits we can't do that under the law the whole world becomes guilty before God verse 20 therefore by the deeds of the law by the works of the law by obedience by any of our good works no flesh will be justified reconciled made right before God in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin there's nothing else that comes through the law knowledge of sin no one is justified by keeping the law or doing anything under the law the law cannot justify verse 21 but now you see the contrast but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets we find it in our Old Testaments even the righteousness of God given through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe for there is no difference it's a gift and it's not merited by any individual person there's nothing that would earn the gift right for all verse 23 have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter five he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him that's the doctrine of imputation it's giftedness it's a crediting or accounting and accounting of righteousness to our account it's not the Roman Catholic view of infused righteousness right God gives us the power we work and work and work and through our working working working we become more and more and more righteousness it's not an infused righteousness by which we are made practically righteous it's a declared gifted accounted credited righteousness and we are from the moment of that accounting as it were we are declared perfectly righteous as if we had never sinned and as if we had kept the law perfectly with one declaration with the gift of God a gift of God's grace in Jesus Christ far different than the Roman Catholic system right we are declared righteous counted righteous not obviously not entirely made righteous we still struggle with our sin don't we a Luther would call it an alien righteousness or a foreign righteousness counted to us not found within us and that's what we need we need a righteousness that comes from outside of us a righteousness that isn't ours because we have none all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags the prophet says Luther found that the perfect righteousness that was needed he found that in the gospel so verse 24 then being justified freely by his grace by grace alone through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth as a propitiation a satisfaction by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ I really look forward to getting into that text in a few weeks it's gonna be really good really juicy so I'm anxious to get there we'll talk about that then that's a mouthful and we'll get to what that all means in a few weeks justification right standing with God is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for his righteousness God will not compromise God will not negotiate or diminish or undermine his own righteousness his perfect justice or his perfect standard all of that is upheld so that God continues to be just righteous and the justifier of those who put faith alone in Christ it's how God can reconcile wicked sinners to himself apart from their keeping this perfect standard of law it's through an imputed righteousness so Luther other early reformers conceived of the law then from Romans chapter three predominantly is having two fundamental purposes first the law according to Romans three shows us our guilt and therefore points us to Jesus Christ and the gospel in other words the law acts as a mirror the first use of the law is that the law acts as a mirror to show us our sin to show us our unrighteousness and to drive us to Christ Paul says that the law became our tutor our paitagagos it was a tutor was someone who used a discipline it wasn't merely someone who tutored you in math it was someone who tutored you in math with a belt in their hand that kind of a tutor the law was our paitagagos it was our disciplinarian our tutor to point us to drive us to Jesus Christ so the first use of the law is to act as a mirror the second use of the law was that through fear of punishment the law is restraint on evil the law is to restrain evil if you look at those two uses of the law one is to bring a person to conversion the other is to restrain wickedness and what do we see in those two uses of the law we really see Augustine's two cities city of God and the city of man in the city of man civil authority was used to restrain evil to second use of the law and in the city of God the law was used to bring people to conversion to make them citizens of the city of God and so that wasn't lost on Luther Luther understood Augustine's city of God city of man as well and saw those two uses of the law eventually and not long after really in Luther's own time a third use of the law from scripture was given or was written about and we find this to be eminently biblical and that is that the law is a rule of right conduct for the Christian three uses of the law if we think about law three uses of the law one it acts as a mirror shows us our guilt drives us into Jesus Christ two it's a restraint on wickedness and we find that use of the law in civil authority third it's a rule of conduct for the Christian in other words the law hasn't been done away with and we can just live as we please without law anti-nominism anti-nominism anti-nomos against the law living as though there were no law that's not the way that it is God's moral law is a reflection of his own character it's a reflection of who God is so as long as we are going to relate to God we relate to God according to his character who he is and what he expects of us we do that now through the gospel and the law under the gospel becomes a rule of conduct for the life of the Christian and because of God's spirit as God has changed our hearts we have the ability in his grace and by his spirit to obey him those three uses of the law the first two uses of the law were important to the reformers in understanding the relationship between church and state this understanding of the law coupled with Augustine's city of God helped Luther formulate a concept of the relationship between church and state for Augustine if you remember there were two cities the city of man which is this world in rebellion against God and there was the city of God and that was made up of redeemed humanity Luther took that and tweaked that a bit and really conceived of a theology of public life in particular a political theology as two kingdoms so not two cities now but two kingdoms both of those kingdoms belonging to God a right hand kingdom and a left hand kingdom sort of took that from Matthew Matthew 25 and the judgment of the sheep and the goats those on his right and those on his left right hand kingdom was that kingdom which was spiritual it was internal it was invisible no need for coercion no need for violence no need for the penal sanctions of law anymore no need for condemnation anymore because citizens of that kingdom have been transformed they've been indwelt by God's spirit they have new hearts and they freely, willingly long to obey God and so there's no need for penal sanctions of the law any longer just need a guide need a rule of life for how they are to conduct themselves and they will in the power of the spirit conduct themselves accordingly the first use of the law would drive them to Christ the second use of the law really was no need it was the third use of the law that applies in this kingdom so in that sense sort of no need for civil authority 1 Timothy 1 verse 9 Paul says knowing this and this was sort of Luther's thinking on this Paul says knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous person but for the lawless and insubordinate for the ungodly and for sinners for the unholy and profane the law was made Paul says for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers for manslayers for fornicators for sodomites for kidnappers for liars for perjurers and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed by trust the law was for sinners in other words and that's the way that Luther conceived of this too two kingdoms in the left hand kingdom left hand kingdom was that physical external visible the visible world these two kingdoms both belong to God both are subject to God God operates within both but two different kingdoms altogether do you see the left hand kingdom still operates under divine authority but the authority that God institutes for the left hand kingdom is the authority of the church and the authority of the state civil authority and the civil authority had a sword as well but in Luther's thinking God commanded both swords but the church didn't wield both if that makes sense the visible and invisible invisible church distinction sort of grew out of Luther's thought you have a visible body a visible kingdom and an invisible kingdom the visible kingdom made up of both those in the right hand and those in the left the invisible only those on the right only genuinely converted people two kingdoms left hand kingdom needed the institution of civil authority and the institution of the church did both civil government and the visible church let me stop and ask at this point if there are any questions I know we want to stop every now and then stop rambling and let you ask questions if there are any yes Alex given a history lesson here but hopefully weave in some theology in there too yeah so if we have the imputed righteousness of Christ why should we keep the law as Christians today at first Timothy 1 8 says the law is not made for a righteous person yeah good question so why would it be necessary for Christians if we've been forgiven of all our sin this question comes up isn't it if we've been forgiven of all our sin if we are no longer under the condemnation of law there is therefore now no condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus then what's the point of Christians keeping the law why then the law Paul is going to answer ask and answer that question in a year in Romans trying to think how many sermons is that going to be for Romans 3 to Romans 6 he's going to deal with that question very extensively in Romans 6 we're going to get there I think a year is doable but why would that be let's open that up why would a Christian why would we need the law as of God to his people like if you look at Zikio 36 it says that God is going to write his law with any heart very good so the new covenant as a condition or as a promise a promise of the new covenant God says I'm going to cause you to keep my law you will walk in all my statutes and judge will know well why is that though why this relationship to law I think two reasons one is that the the creator creature distinction whether you're safe or not doesn't go away so we're still obligated before God also to the law of God teaches us how to live pleasing in his sight that's the Christian desires that they their heart is drawn toward that yeah so the Christian wants to I think really wrapped up in those two and that the creator creature distinction really really important understanding that God created us as image bears we bear his image of large part predominant part of that image that we bear of God is a moral image we don't look like him God does not have a physical body we don't act like him God is entirely other but we have communicable attributes that we reflect of God and they reflect his moral character is moral nature and so we live in accord with his law as image bears in order to glorify him and God will be glorified in his creation so Tom thank you Sergio we're also saved to obey his commandments yeah amen and the Lord says in in John 14 verse 15 he says if you love me keep my commandments yeah amen and the apostle Paul also says in 1st Corinthians chapter 7 in verse 19 circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but keeping the commandments of God is what matters amen yeah so we're saved unto obedience yeah amen enabled to obey him yeah by the Spirit of God seems lost on the professing church today much of the professing church that anytime you talk about obedience all of a sudden now you're a legalist now it's we've been saved to obey him Paul's apostleship Paul has been he says made an apostle for the obedience of faith among all nations for his name for obedience so yeah it's very important that we obey the Lord and that's you know it goes back to our relationship to God so good question brother and and that is what gave rise then to the third use of the law really and what is the relationship of the law then to the genuine Christian it's a rule of conduct it shows us how we are to live for him Paul said I would have not I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you shall not covet right the law teaches us and instructs us how we're to live and we know the negative points of the law the positive points of the law there is much more depth to the law than a thou shall not murder and we find that out quickly in the Sermon on the Mount right and how the law is expanded by the Lord himself so okay so the left hand came right hand kingdom spiritual internal invisible left hand this is in Luther's thinking left hand kingdom really the kingdom of this world the visible external physical in that left hand kingdom left hand kingdom needed civil authority to restrain wickedness needed ecclesiastical or church authority to point centers to the gospel and so the left hand kingdom included civil government and the visible church the visible church responsible for religious education responsible for religious practice has authority over external conduct of the people uh... as did the civil authority the government uh... also had authority over external conduct uh... both bore swords as it were in Luther's thinking to restrain evil uh... the sword of the church was excommunication our church discipline which if you remember that time during the time of the Reformation everybody was required to go to church uh... you lived in an area of there was a local parish as it were and you were required to go uh... became law uh... to go to church at one point and uh... so everybody was included as it were in the church and you were included in the church at that time through baptism uh... not circumcised any longer the eighth day of the stock of israel uh... believers began to be baptized as infants by the roman catholic church because that was the the way related related to the church uh... was through baptism so you're baptized into the church as it were and so in order to associate you know the infant mortality rate was through the roof many many many many many many infants died in childbirth many mothers died in childbirth and um... so because of the very high infant mortality rate um... infants as young as they could be were baptized into the church because salvation was through the church that made sense uh... in roman catholicism all that to say is that that this was the authority that the visible church the civil authority wielded uh... at the time of the reformation uh... to luther luther's thinking the visible church and the civil authority had no right to bind to the conscience only god could bind to the conscience through his word and that was only for those in the right hand kingdom and so both the church and the state uh... exercised an authority over external conduct not internal heart uh... god looks upon the heart man looks on outward appearance so as long as they did not buy into the conscience the state and the church had this overlapping authority to restrain evil it was back to the two-sword doctrine and we talked about last week two-swords um... however of the left-hand kingdom was not a lesser sword as it were uh... or the civil authority was not a lesser sword under the authority of the church that were too distinct in luther's thinking they were two distinct swords really what this reminds us of in what luther and other reformers were conceiving of was a modern-day theocracy uh... we've talked about before the continuity or discontinuity between old testament and new testament the more continuity that you see between old testament and new testament uh... we're gonna use these terms we can talk about them later uh... the more continuity that you see the more covenantal you are the more discontinuity that you see the more dispensational you are if you understand what those terms are um... but continuity and discontinuity and so for the reformers Initially, there was great continuity. So if we, you're used to this drawing, here are the people of God, right? To become, this is, they're the people of God by virtue of the new covenant, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And to be a member of this people, so to speak, you are a member of this people by grace through faith in Christ, right? Put your faith in Jesus Christ, you're here. So into this circle, so to speak, are all those from all of history who have put by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ were made of the people of God, were justified in God's sight. That includes Adam, includes Noah, a preacher of righteousness, includes Abraham, and down through history includes you and me, if we've returned from our sin and put our trust in Jesus Christ. This is the people of God, the people through faith in Jesus Christ are by virtue of the new covenant, for them not yet established, for us it's been established, it was established at the cross. But by virtue of that covenant, this is the people of God, okay? What God did through Abraham is the, there's this physical component that was added to the promise. Here's the promise, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ would come, crushed the head of the serpent. So this is the promise. This was added to the promise was the covenant of circumcision, right? And we've talked about that on Sunday morning now in Romans chapter two. The Abrahamic covenant added circumcision. You're circumcised, you're in the covenant. If you're not circumcised, you're cut off. And so there was this veil as it were that was added, the veil of circumcision. So anyone who was gonna come into this circle had to be circumcised in order to be in that circle. Later, under Moses, got out of the law, the Mosaic covenant, Mosaic administration, the law of Moses. So this became what would come to be known as the middle wall of separation, separation between Jew and Gentile. And so anyone coming into this circle through faith in Jesus Christ would have as an expression of their faith obeyed the tenants of the Mosaic law and would have been circumcised, would have been ceremonially washed, would have kept the feast days, right, would have obeyed the Mosaic covenant. Of those that did that were, for example, Caleb. Caleb was a Kenite. Caleb would have had to have become a Jew in order to be in the covenant. Rahab was a Gentile, Rahab became a Jew. Rahab was saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. That's how Rahab was in the circle. But as an expression of Rahab's faith, what would she have done, she would have obeyed the Mosaic covenant. She would have been ceremonially washed, she would have kept the feast days, she would have obeyed the law of Moses. And so under Jesus Christ, for example, under Jesus Christ, the middle wall of separation has taken down. The veil in the temple is rent from top to bottom. And now Gentiles no longer having to come through the veil, as it were, of the Mosaic administration. Gentiles now come into the people of God through by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone. There is no longer any middle wall of separation. There is no longer any distinction, as it were, between Jew and Greek, slave, free, male, female. We're all one in Christ Jesus. God, Ephesians chapter two, called to those who were once a far off, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope in the world, without God and without hope. And he brought them near through the blood of Jesus Christ, right? This circle has always been the same. Always been the same, same as it was when Adam, same as it is today, one people of God, but the way that they come in has changed, right? That Mosaic covenant has been done away with. In the minds of Roman Catholics and in the minds of reformers, and still to some degree, in the minds of Presbyterians today, there is some form of covenant, that exists around that. That for Martin Luther, this is the invisible church, the right hand kingdom, this circle, this is the left hand kingdom. And this kingdom includes everybody in the world. Visible, external, physical, needs both civil authority and ecclesiastical or church authority. The right hand kingdom just needs ecclesiastical authority, right? Just needs the church, we just need God, His law. So in the left hand kingdom, needs both civil and ecclesiastical. For the reformers then, because both civil and ecclesiastical authority was necessary, this, that derived from the Mosaic covenant from the Old Testament, right? Thinking about the Old Testament in that way, applying the Old Testament to current civil and ecclesiastical structure and doing that inappropriately, right? This is, the kingdom of God is not the kingdoms of this world. Jesus Christ, my kingdom is not of this world, right? We're talking about two separate kingdoms altogether, right? But what the reformers were trying to do, what Roman Catholicism has done, is effectively make a modern day Mosaic administration. Presbyterians today believe in a visible church and an invisible, and we'll sometimes use terms like that, but we mean something slightly different when we use them. Visible to Presbyterians includes those who are genuinely converted and those who are not. The sons and daughters of believers are in this visible kingdom, so to speak. Given the sign and what some would say, the seal of baptism as our participation in this visible kingdom as a seal or a guarantee that they'll one day be in this kingdom. So what Presbyterians do today is they baptize their infant. This is their understanding of the covenant. They baptize their infants as a sign and a seal of their participation in this covenant community, the visible church in the expectation that they'll one day be in the invisible church through faith, does that make sense? And it really is a misapplication, too much continuity between Old Testament, Old Covenant and New Covenant. That wall has been torn down. And now there is no other covenant under which anyone today is in any kind of relationship with God, but the New Covenant alone. There is no other covenant. There is no other covenant under which infants can be baptized into a covenant. What kind of covenant community are we talking about? There is no covenant community outside the New Covenant community, and those in the New Covenant community are only there by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone, and most infants aren't turning from their sin and putting faith in Jesus Christ, right? If you've been around an infant, they're living headlong in their sin, right, so. But so does that make sense? The distinction between continuity and discontinuity. What the kingdoms to Luther, the kingdoms to the reformers in their minds was more or less, and I don't wanna oversimplify that, but more or less a trying to establish in their context too much continuity between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant, establishing a theocracy, if you will, a theocracy-like relationship between church and state that more or less looks like Old Testament Israel. That's where the hierarchy of government inside Lutheranism, inside Presbyterianism, certainly inside Roman Catholicism, that's where that comes from. That's where infant baptism persists. It was started under Roman Catholicism. It persists in Presbyterianism. It persists in Lutheranism. A lot of Protestant churches, infant baptism. It's just a wrong view of Old Testament Israel, a wrong view, too much continuity between New Covenant and the Mosaic administration. Presbyterians will say, Lutherans will say, that the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant are the same covenant, that the only difference is administration, that the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of grace, but it is administered differently. The New Covenant is a covenant of grace, but administered differently. They're putting, they're making them like this when they're like this. Hebrews says the Old Covenant has gone away. It is deleted, it's been done away with, no longer stands, right, 6-0. So is that something that Luther believes or is that something that came later? That's something that Luther believed and something that was developed over time after Luther. So eventually a man by the name of Heinrich Bullinger would write a defense of infant baptism from the Covenants and would defend the, in the light of, initially they were called rebaptizers, the Anabaptists, we'll talk about them in a minute, and Baptists coming on the scene, Heinrich Bullinger wrote a defense of infant baptism and he based it on exactly that on the understanding of the Covenants. There is no, yeah, I ask the question, it's really a simple question in that for Presbyterians today. Under what covenant are believers, are children of believers, under what covenant are they in relationship with God? The only answer that you can give for that is the New Covenant. That's not the New Covenant. The New Covenant, God says in the New Covenant, Jeremiah chapter 31, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more. That's a blessing of the New Covenant. Do the children of believers by virtue of their birth in a Christian home, are they forgiven of their sin and their sins God remembers no more? No, they have to come to faith in Jesus Christ for that to be the case, to be members of the New Covenant. It's almost like saying, we're gonna talk about this this morning in the service, it's almost like the Jewish formalists saying, we have Abraham as our father. John the Baptist say, do not say to yourselves that you have Abraham as your father. God can raise up sons of Abraham from these stones. Do not say to yourself you were born into a Christian home and you have the sign and the seal of baptism and that you're in the covenant community. Don't say that to yourselves, right? There is no covenant under which the children of believers are in relationship to God. There is no covenant today under which those people that inhabit a little slice of land on the eastern side of the Mediterranean, there is no covenant under which those people are in relationship to God other than the New Covenant, the New Covenant through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That's the only covenant today under which people, anybody is in relationship to God, right? But for the reformers coming out of Roman Catholicism, this, if you can imagine, very confusing, very difficult, right? Very difficult. We have the light of centuries of thought, centuries of scholarship on this particular issue. They didn't have the benefit of that. They're working things out as they go and they're coming straight out of Roman Catholicism, right? Where this has been talked about thought, have been a predominant part of their thinking for centuries. And so we understand the difficulty associated with that. We would simply say today to our Presbyterian brothers and sisters, to other Protestant denominations, finish the Reformation, finish what was started. Reform Baptists, reform Baptists have reformed. We were reformed Baptists of the Romans who've gone all the way in that Reformation. They need to catch up and keep moving along, okay? And we say that lovingly. I don't mean to be crass about that, but let's be uncompromising with the truth, right? What we're talking about is the truth. So I'm not gonna mince words about it either. Presbyterians are wrong and Lutherans are wrong. Those Protestant denominations are wrong. They need to stop baptizing children. There is no covenant under which a child is in relationship to God other than the new covenant. That child needs to put faith and trust in Jesus Christ, turn from their sin, right? So we wanna take a stand for the truth. Questions, Alex? Besides the, well, I know one or two pastors in the New Testament that says, and the household was baptized. Besides that, is there any application in the New Testament for infant baptism or what you're talking about? No, and that's not one either. So yeah, household does not imply or implicate that infants are being baptized. But if you can imagine, for example, where that takes place in Acts 10 with Cornelius, right? Peter comes and preaches the gospel. The Holy Spirit falls upon that household. All those who were assembled there, who were we to say that God, yeah, they heard the word at the preaching, right? So it wasn't superstitious, you know, devoid of the truth of God. It was at the preaching of the gospel that Cornelius and his household heard the gospel, understood the gospel, responded in repentant faith and were baptized, right? There's nothing there to suggest that because he used the word, Oeconomos, that their infants were baptized and nowhere in that, you know, that was the very first argument, the very first argument that after the Reformation that Baptist used to say, what you're doing is unbiblical. It's the regulative principle of worship. They saw no warrant in scripture to baptize infants. And so they argued against it. And no infants in church history or in the Bible that are baptized. So if we don't see it in the Bible, we shouldn't be doing it, right? And that was before they began to further understand the covenants and the covenantal argument against it. So, okay, in the reformer's thinking then, that led to this confusion between the kingdoms, right? And we live in the left-hand kingdom where it's all under the authority of God, but there's civil authority and there's church authority in the left-hand kingdom. And in Luther's thinking and the reformer's thinking, those two things were entirely separate. They were entirely distinct. So later, when Calvin comes along, Calvin takes this one step further, sees a distinction between civil and ecclesiastical authority. Often that council advised magistrates or civil authority but had no civil or judicial authority itself. But that council of churches began to have its own government. Councils were added to councils and pretty soon, Luther, Calvin, others began to use bishops in the church as a hierarchical structure. So what are they doing? They're mirroring Roman Catholicism, which Roman Catholicism is mirroring Old Testament Israel. Roman Catholicism has a priesthood. It has a pope, a high priest as it were. There's a magisterium or a judicial branch. It's too much continuity. They're mirroring Old Testament Israel and Calvin, Luther, other reformers began to do the same. And this led to the involvement of the state. Calvin formed a consistory made up of representatives from both civil and church authority. It was a mixed church state institution, not unlike Luther's left-hand kingdom, that regulated conduct. And so both the church and the state could punish external conduct when there was a moral failure or a breach of required practice. Like Luther, the concept of Old Testament covenant was transferred to the relationship of church and state, and there became this concept of what's called a covenantal civil government, the covenantal civil government, a pattern after God's dealings with Israel in the Exodus. God asked Israelites, and you still hear this argument from Presbyterians today. God asked the Israelites at the Exodus three times if they would affirm the covenant three times, the Israelites affirmed the covenant. And so the Israelites then consented will be his people. He will be our God. And that was to the Presbyterians to a sense a covenant of grace because God entered into the covenant with the people. They gave birth to a lot of this. This was expanded into Presbyterian polity and church government. All were members of the covenant through birth, therefore baptism into the church. It was into this context quickly that Conrad Grebel of the Swiss Brethren began a movement that would later be called Anabaptism or the Anabaptists, rebaptizers, where conversion was necessary to enter the church, not simply birth, conversion was necessary, and that baptism followed conversion. Both the Roman Catholic church and reformers at the time would persecute Anabaptists and later Baptists. We did not derive from Anabaptism. We came from English Puritans in the 1640s. Baptists derived from English Puritanism in the 1640s. There was this heretical sect that was called Anabaptists. There were the Anabaptists from Anabaptists came, for example, the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Amish came out of Anabaptism. The Baptists came from English Puritans in the 1640s, but they believed, one of the things that they believed was in believers' baptism or baptism that followed conversion. And so that began to take a root and this distinction then between church and state became even more clear. Luther and Calvin were called magisterial reformers because they worked through the magistrate to establish the church. Grebel and others were called radical reformers because they believed in a radical distinction between church and state. Government was not to be involved. All right, I think we've gone as far as we can go with the time we have. Two kingdoms, the two kingdoms theology of Luther and other reformers would later be revisited by Abraham Kuiper and Richard Niebuhr and would be, again, tweaked. In Kuiper's thinking in particular, the relationship between church and state or the relationship of the Christian, the civil authority was a transformational relationship. In other words, the church had a responsibility under the great commission through the preaching of the gospel to transform hearts in the left-hand kingdom. The church was not a part of the left-hand kingdom. The church was to be a pure church to as closely conform to the invisible church as possible by being careful who you admit through baptism, were to be as closely conformed to the invisible church as possible and through the transforming work of the gospel or to be an influence in the left-hand kingdom for the gospel of Jesus Christ, that makes sense. Next week, I hope that is somewhat clear. If you have questions, please feel free to come talk to me, I'll be happy to help. And next week, we're gonna jump forward and talk about then the American Revolution and in particular, how this theology of two kingdoms becomes more a theology of Christian resistance at the time of the revolution. We'll get there next week. All right, let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank you Lord again for the blessing you've afforded us of talking about this. I pray Lord, in the weeks to come that you continue to bless these concepts, these thoughts, this scripture to our heart and mind, that you'd help us to understand what was going on, what is going on, how we're to understand these things and then how we are to properly relate and help us, Lord, from this, and determine how we are to live in our present generation, this wicked generation, perverse generation and help us to do that faithfully for you as we seek to preach the gospel and be an influence to this wicked world. We need you Lord in this, help us to understand, lead us, direct us, we pray by your spirit in Jesus' name, amen.